The present invention relates to a method for applying an image to a receptor element using two heating steps.
The major user of color copiers to create personalized transfers are copy shops (e.g. Kinko's) which use commercial laser color copiers, such as the Canon #500/700/800 or the Xerox Spectrum. The machines cost $30,000 and more. A commercial heat press is required to effect transfer.
Because a commercial press is necessary, the stores must also carry an inventory of apparel since the consumer can not shop elsewhere and apply a transfer at home. Presently, transferring images to receptor elements require costly machines, combined with the requirement for an inventory of apparel, a commercial and costly heat press (e.g. $4,000+). These demands prevent consumers from having easy access within the course of one's everyday living experience.
For the past 20 years, transfers could only be printed at copy stores, plus a few high traffic specialty locations, such as amusement parks, tourist centers, etc. Access to these machines was limited. First, not many of the copy shops would spend the $30,000-50,000 per machine. Certainly not the smaller shops in more remote areas. Second, most frequently, T-shirt personalization is an impulse and very few people have occasion to visit copy centers frequently, or on a somewhat regular basis. Third, the copy centers would be required to have at least one commercial heat press (as hand ironing was impossible), plus a variety of T-shirts in different sizes. This in-store inventory of shirts was necessary, because the imaged transfer had to be pressed into the garment at the store. Fourth, copy centers have no desire to carry an assortment of apparel in differing designs and sizes.
Traditionally, copy centers in the imaging transfer business do not inventory anything other than T-shirts and, on occasion, a baseball jersey and cap. The consumer had no range of choices with regard to gift items, such as pillowcases, barbecue aprons, tote bags, windbreakers, sweatshirts, etc. And certainly no range of colors.
Supermarkets, Drugstores, etc., find it is not cost effective to devote so many resources (i.e. costly copier, commercial press, and wide range of apparel in inventory) for the return on investment. Consequently, consumers lose because they do not have routine access to obtain personally imaged apparel.
No supermarket or mass merchandiser (eg. K-Mart, Wal-Mart, etc.) has the personnel, the time, or the space to have the copier, along with compulsory commercial heat press, plus a wide range of garments. However, offering the many store visitors, in high traffic locations cited above, the capability to copy a photo just being received in the store after development of film, or a wallet photo, a prom picture, graduation picture, or simple "refrigerator art" provides a significantly better opportunity to both the consumer and the store management.
One problem in the art is that the internal heat of toner laser imaging devices exceeds the melt point of any "hand ironable" transfer. The problem has been apparent for 20 years when Xerox introduced its first commercial toner color copier. In 20 years, no one has found a successful method to achieve hand ironing of toner laser transfers.
The modifications will follow description of the fundamental 20 years inability to hand iron laser toner transfers. All transfers must have a meltpoint higher than the fuser rollers within toner copiers. This meltpoint is a combination of temperature, the amount of time that the transfer is in contact with fuser roller, and pressure applied to transfer as it passes over the roller.
Papers are available but each can only pass through the copier with an imprinted image, and not melt when undergoing the printing procedure. However, because the meltpoint must be so high (350-400.degree. F. for 20 seconds) the transfer must be heat pressed. Should one try to hand iron, the iron would have to be, at its highest temperature, over each area, one at a time and for 20 seconds, until the 8.5".times.11" or 11".times.17" transfer had been completely covered with the iron for 20 seconds. On the 8.5".times.11" size, it would require about eight (8) changings of the location of the iron to press the entire surface. It is inevitable that when the last position of the iron had been completed, the iron placed upon the table, and peel of transfer begun, you will often find that the first sections of those transfers which had been pressed had since cooled and the transfer must, inevitably with many current "hot peel," stick to the fabric. The consumer could never peel the transfer from the fabric without a great deal of drag (i.e., resistance to peel). This drag would lift the piles of the fabric upward thus leaving the color unprotected at the extreme tips of the fibers. The present inventor found that if the colored coating is not compressed into the fabric, color will be significantly lost in laundering, coatings will develop cracks, feel will be rough, and colors are less vibrant.
This inability to hand iron is a universal problem today, with exceptions only in degree. Some coatings are marginally acceptable, others are not. Therefore, the restrictions for both consumer and the stores remain intact, as they have for 20 years.